Life and Living

The Relentlessness of Modern Parenting

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THE RELENTLESSNESS OF MODERN PARENTING

Claire Cain Miller

Renée Sentilles and her son Isaac eating dinner at their home in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. She is raising him in a much more hands-on way than she was raised.

Raising children has become significantly more time-consuming and expensive, amid a sense that opportunity has grown more elusive.

Parenthood in the United States has become much more demanding than it used to be.

Over just a couple of generations, parents have greatly increased the amount of time, attention and money they put into raising children. Mothers who juggle jobs outside the home spend just as much timetending their children as stay-at-home mothers did in the 1970s.

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The amount of money parents spend on children, which used to peak when they were in high school, is now highest when they are under 6 and over 18 and into their mid-20s.

Renée Sentilles enrolled her son Isaac in lessons beginning when he was an infant. Even now that he’s 12, she rarely has him out of sight when he is home.

“I read all the child-care books,” said Ms. Sentilles, a professor in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. “I enrolled him in piano at 5. I took him to soccer practices at 4. We tried track; we did all the swimming lessons, martial arts. I did everything. Of course I did.”

While this kind of intensive parenting — constantly teaching and monitoring children — has been the norm for upper-middle-class parents since the 1990s, new research shows that people across class divides now consider it the best way to raise children, even if they don’t have the resources to enact it.

There are signs of a backlash, led by so-called free-range parents, but social scientists say the relentlessness of modern-day parenting has a powerful motivation: economic anxiety. For the first time, it’s as likely as not that American children will be less prosperous than their parents. For parents, giving children the best start in life has come to mean doing everything they can to ensure that their children can climb to a higher class, or at least not fall out of the one they were born into.

“As the gap between rich and poor increases, the cost of screwing up increases,” said Philip Cohen, a sociologist at the University of Maryland who studies families and inequality. “The fear is they’ll end up on the other side of the divide.”

But it also stokes economic anxiety, because even as more parents say they want to raise childrenthis way, it’s the richest ones who are most able to do so.

“Intensive parenting is a way for especially affluent white mothers to make sure their children are maintaining their advantaged position in society,” said Jessica Calarco, a sociologist at Indiana University and author of “Negotiating Opportunities: How the Middle Class Secures Advantages in School.”

Stacey Jones raised her two sons, now in their 20s, as a single mother in a working-class, mostly black neighborhood in Stone Mountain, Ga. She said she and other parents tried hard to give their children opportunities by finding affordable options: municipal sports leagues instead of traveling club teams and school band instead of private music lessons.

“I think most people have this craving for their children to do better and know more than they do,” said Ms. Jones, who works in university communications. “But a lot of these opportunities were closed off because they do cost money.”

‘Child-centered, expert-guided, emotionally absorbing’

“Parent” as a verb gained widespread use in the 1970s, which is also when parenting books exploded. The 1980s brought helicopter parenting, a movement to keep children safe from physical harm, spurred by high-profile child assaults and abductions (despite the fact that they were, and are, exceedingly rare). Intensive parenting was first described in the 1990s and 2000s by social scientists including Sharon Hays and Annette Lareau. It grew from a major shift in how people saw children. They began to be considered vulnerable and moldable — shaped by their early childhood experiences — an idea bolstered by advances in child development research.

The result was a parenting style that was “child-centered, expert-guided, emotionally absorbing, labor intensive and financially expensive,” Ms. Hays wrote in her 1998 book, “The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood.” And mothers were the ones expected to be doing the constant cultivation.

The time parents spend in the presence of their children has not changed much, but parents today spend more of it doing hands-on child care. Time spent on activities like reading to children; doing crafts; taking them to lessons; attending recitals and games; and helping with homework has increased the most. Today, mothers spend nearly five hours a week on that, compared with 1 hour 45 minutes hours in 1975 — and they worry it’s not enough. Parents’ leisure time, like exercising or socializing, is much more likely to be spent with their children than it used to be. While fathers have recently increased their time spent with children, mothers still spend significantly more.

Ms. Sentilles’s mother, Claire Tassin, described a very different way of parenting when her two children were young, in the 1970s. “My job was not to entertain them,” said Ms. Tassin, who lives in Vacherie, La. “My job was to love them and discipline them.”

Of her grandchildren, Isaac and his three cousins, she said: “Their life is much more enriched than mine was, but it definitely has been directed. I’m not saying it doesn’t work. They’re amazing. But I know I felt free, so free as a child. I put on my jeans and my cowboy boots and I played outside all day long.”

The new trappings of intensive parenting are largely fixtures of white, upper-middle-class American culture, but researchers say the expectations have permeated all corners of society, whether or not parents can achieve them. It starts in utero, when mothers are told to avoid cold cuts and coffee, lest they harm the baby. Then: video baby monitors. Homemade baby food. Sugar-free birthday cake. Toddler music classes. Breast-feeding exclusively. Spraying children’s hands with sanitizer and covering them in “natural” sunscreen. Throwing Pinterest-perfect birthday parties. Eating lunch in their children’s school cafeterias. Calling employers after their adult children interview for jobs.

The American Academy of Pediatrics promotes the idea that parents should be constantly monitoring and teaching children, even when the science doesn’t give a clear answer about what’s best. It now recommends that babies sleep in parents’ rooms for a year. Children’s television — instead of giving parents the chance to cook dinner or have an adult conversation — is to be “co-viewed” for maximum learning.

An American phenomenon

At the same time, there has been little increase in support for working parents, like paid parental leave, subsidized child care or flexible schedules, and there are fewer informal neighborhood networks of at-home parents because more mothers are working.

Ms. Sentilles felt the lack of support when it became clear that Isaac had some challenges like anxiety and trouble sleeping. She and her ex-husband changed their work hours and coordinated tutors and therapists.

“Friends are constantly texting support, but no one has time,” she said. “It’s that we’re all doing this at the same time.”

Parenthood is more hands-off in many other countries. In Tokyo, children start riding the subway alone by first grade, and in Paris, they spend afternoons unaccompanied at playgrounds. Intensive parenting has gained popularity in England and Australia, but it has distinctly American roots — reflecting a view of child rearing as an individual, not societal, task.

It’s about “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps,” said Caitlyn Collins, a sociologist at Washington University in St. Louis whose book, “Making Motherhood Work: How Women Manage Careers and Caregiving,” comes out in February. “It distracts from the real questions, like why don’t we have a safe place for all kids to go when they’re done with school before parents get home from work?”

In a new paper, Patrick Ishizuka surveyed a nationally representative group of 3,642 parents about parenting. Regardless of their education, income or race, they said the most hands-on and expensive choices were best. For example, they said children who were bored after school should be enrolled in extracurricular activities, and that parents who were busy should stop their task and draw with their children if asked.

“Intensive parenting has really become the dominant cultural model for how children should be raised,” said Mr. Ishizuka, a postdoctoral fellow studying gender and inequality at Cornell.

Americans are having fewer children, so they have more time and money to invest in each one. But investment gaps between parents of differing incomes were not always so large. As a college degree became increasingly necessary to earn a middle-class wage and as admissions grew more competitive, parents began spending significantly more time on child care, found Valerie Ramey and Garey Ramey, economists at the University of California, San Diego.

Parents also began spending more money on their children for things like preschools and enrichment activities, Sabino Kornrich, a sociologist at Emory, showed in two recent papers. Rich parents have more to spend, but the share of income that poor parents spend on their children has also grown.

In states with the largest gaps between the rich and the poor, rich parents spend an even larger share of their incomes on things like lessons and private school, found Danny Schneider, a sociologist at the University of California, Berkeley, and colleagues in a May paper. Parents in the middle 50 percent of incomes have also increased their spending. “Lower socioeconomic status parents haven’t been able to keep up,” he said.

Besides having less money, they have less access to the informal conversations in which parents exchange information with other parents like them. Ms. Jones recalled that one of her sons liked swimming, but it wasn’t until he was in high school that she learned about swim teams on which he could have competed.

“I didn’t know because I don’t live in a swim tennis community,” she said. “Unfortunately colleges and universities tend to look at these things as a marker of achievement, and I feel like a lot of kids who have working-class backgrounds don’t benefit from the knowledge.”

Race influences parents’ concerns, too. Ms. Jones said that as a parent of black boys, she decided to raise them in a mostly black neighborhood so they would face less racism, even though it meant driving farther to many activities.

This is common for middle-class black mothers, found Dawn Dow, a sociologist at the University of Maryland whose book, “Mothering While Black: Boundaries and Burdens of Middle-Class Parenthood,” comes out in February. “They’re making decisions to protect their kids from early experiences of racism,” Ms. Dow said. “It’s a different host of concerns that are equally intensive.”

The growing backlash

Experts agree that investing in children is a positive thing — they benefitfrom time with their parents, stimulating activities and supportive parenting styles. As low-income parents have increased the time they spend teaching and reading to their children, the readiness gap between kindergarten students from rich and poor families has shrunk. As parental supervision has increased, most serious crimes against children have declined significantly.

But it’s also unclear how much of children’s success is actually determinedby parenting.

“It’s still an open question whether it’s the parenting practices themselves that are making the difference, or is it simply growing up with college-educated parents in an environment that’s richer in many dimensions?” said Liana Sayer, a sociologist at the University of Maryland and director of the Time Use Laboratory there. “I don’t think any of these studies so far have been able to answer whether these kids would be doing well as adults regardless, simply because of resources.”

There has been a growing movement against the relentlessness of modern-day parenting. Utah passed a free-range parenting law, exempting parents from accusations of neglect if they let their children play or commute unattended.

Psychologists and others have raised alarms about children’s high levels of stress and dependence on their parents, and the need to develop independence, self-reliance and grit. Research has shown that children with hyper-involved parents have more anxiety and less satisfaction with life, and that when children play unsupervised, they build social skills, emotional maturity and executive function.

Parents, particularly mothers, feel stress, exhaustion and guilt at the demands of parenting this way, especially while holding a job. American time use diaries show that the time women spend parenting comes at the expense of sleep, time alone with their partners and friends, leisure time and housework. Some pause their careers or choose not to have children. Others, like Ms. Sentilles, live in a state of anxiety. She doesn’t want to hover, she said. But trying to oversee homework, limit screen time and attend to Isaac’s needs, she feels no choice.

“At any given moment, everything could just fall apart,” she said.

“On the one hand, I love my work,” she said. “But the way it’s structured in this country, where there’s not really child care and there’s this sense that something is wrong with you if you aren’t with your children every second when you’re not at work? It isn’t what I think feminists thought they were signing up for.”

How to Safely Exercise During Pregnancy

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HOW TO SAFELY EXERCISE DURING PREGNANCY

Melinda Wenner Moyer

THE GIST

  • Exercising during pregnancy is generally safe and can reduce the risk for several conditions including excessive weight gain, gestational diabetes and preeclampsia.
  • Always consult with your doctor before starting any exercise routine, since certain conditions can make it more risky. 
  • Doctors recommend about 30 minutes of exercise a day — or 150 minutes a week — but no more than 45 minutes per day, which can increase your risk of overheating and dehydration. 
  • Aerobic exercise, including jogging, is safe during pregnancy, but you should be able to carry on a conversation while active. Start slowly if you rarely exercised before pregnancy or are obese.
  • Avoid inherently risky activities, such as scuba or sky diving, contact sports, horseback riding, gymnastics or downhill skiing. Hot yoga and hot pilates are also unadvisable since they can increase body temperature too much and endanger the fetus.
  • If you notice warning signs of early labor or pregnancy complications, such as vaginal bleeding, breathing problems, or painful contractions, stop and contact your doctor.

Both times I’ve been pregnant, I’ve felt conflicted about exercise. On the one hand, I was often tired and nauseous; napping felt way more appealing than sweating. On the other hand, I wanted to do what was best for my baby and ward off extra pregnancy pounds. So I began hunting for the perfect prenatal workout. I tried what felt like everything — elliptical machines, yoga, power walking and even weightlifting, which elicited a number of concerned comments from gym-goers to “take it easy.”

According to Dr. Margie Davenport, Ph.D., director of the Program for Pregnancy and Postpartum Health at the University of Alberta in Canada, the belief that it’s dangerous to exercise during pregnancy is common — but it’s wrong. “We recommend beginning exercise or continuing to exercise as soon as you become pregnant,” she said. In most uncomplicated pregnancies, exercise is safe and tied to a reduced risk for many complications including excessive weight gain, gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, back pain and depression. For anyone worried about the safety of exercise during pregnancy, like those judgey gym-goers, Dr. Davenport and her colleagues recently published a systematic review in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, which analyzed 46 studies, and concluded that prenatal exercise does not increase the risk of miscarriage or death of the fetus.

The research I consulted, along with the obstetrician and maternal-fetal medicine specialist I talked with for this guide, agreed with Dr. Davenport: In most circumstances, exercise is good for both mom and baby, although there are important things to keep in mind. 

WHAT TO DO

  • Understand the differences between safe and unsafe exercise

Most of the time, exercising during pregnancy is safe, but nevertheless “it’s really important that women speak with their health care provider to see if they have any contraindications, or medical reasons that they shouldn’t,” Dr. Davenport said.

According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, women with certain health conditions — including certain heart or lung diseases, cervical issues, pregnancy with multiples, persistent bleeding during the second or third trimester, preeclampsia or anemia — shouldn’t exercise while pregnant at all.

ACOG’s guidelines also note that if you have certain conditions or habits, such as heavy smoking, high blood pressure, overactive thyroid or are morbidly obese or underweight, consult with your doctor before exercising, because the benefits of exercise may not outweigh the potential risks.

  • Recognize how exercise can help you

Exercising during pregnancy isn’t just about keeping off extra pounds (although it also does that). According to a recent review published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, pregnant women who exercised in various ways had about a 40 percent reduced risk for gestational diabetes, gestational hypertension and preeclampsia. Studies also suggest that women who exercise during pregnancy are less likely to become depressed and develop less severe low back and pelvic pain. Regular exercise can help with labor and post-delivery recovery, too, by reducing the odds of having an instrument-assisted delivery — a delivery in which forceps or a vacuum device is used — and lowering the risk for urinary incontinence after birth. 

  • Take precautions before and during exercise — and avoid risky types

To reduce the chance of developing low blood sugar, you should eat before exercising, said Dr. Raul Artal, M.D., a professor and chairman emeritus of the department of obstetrics, gynecology and women’s health at the St. Louis University School of Medicine. Smoothies, fruits, nuts or whole-grain crackers are good choices. Drink water to stay hydrated, too, and don’t exercise outdoors at temperatures above 90 degrees. That’s because heat stress in the first trimester, such as from saunas and hot tubs, has been linked with birth defects of the brain, nervous system or spinal cord. According to recent research, though, exercising when it’s not really hot out does not increase core body temperature enough to cause problems. In fact, research suggests that exercising during pregnancy is linked with a reduced risk for neural tube defects.

ACOG recommends that pregnant women avoid the following activities, which could pose health risks:

  • Contact sports such as ice hockey, boxing, soccer and basketball
    • Activities with a high risk of falling, such as downhill skiing, water skiing, surfing, off-road cycling, gymnastics and horseback riding
    • Scuba diving
    • Sky diving
    • Hot yoga or hot pilates 
  • Choose activities you can do regularly

“Oftentimes, women think that exercise means going to a gym, and it doesn’t,” said Dr. Diana Ramos, M.D., M.P.H., an obstetrician and medical director for reproductive health at the Los Angeles Public Health Department. “It’s as simple as walking.”

Other activities ACOG recommends include swimming, stationary cycling, yoga, pilates and low-impact aerobics such as jogging and pool aerobics. What’s most important is that you choose an activity that you’ll be able to do regularly. My favorite prenatal workout ended up being one I did in my basement — where I was conveniently shielded from intrusive bystanders and just a few steps away from the essential re-fueling station (aka my kitchen).

ACOG’s guidelines recommend that pregnant women exercise for 150 minutes a week, or about 30 minutes a day, five days a week. They caution against exercising for more than 45 minutes at a time because doing so can increase the risk for low blood sugar, which can make you lightheaded or dizzy. If you didn’t exercise much before you got pregnant, or you are obese, it’s O.K. to start with as little as 10 minutes of activity a day and “build it up at a rate that is going to be sustainable,” Dr. Davenport said. Dr. Davenport also pointed out that some activity is better than none at all — exercising for fewer than 150 minutes a week still provides some benefits.

Aerobic exercise, such as jogging, is safe for women who were active before they got pregnant. Guidelines recommend that women be able to pass the “talk test,” meaning they can carry on a conversation while exercising. More intense exercise may also be O.K., but Dr. Gregory Davies, M.D., a professor and chair of the Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine at Queen’s University in Canada, pointed out that very little research has been done to address this question. “Most, if not all, our knowledge about safety and pregnancy benefits is based on research protocols that reflected moderate exercise, at most,” he said. The same goes for strength training, so if you’re going to lift weights, don’t overdo it. A 2015 trialfound that pregnant women can safely lift 10 pounds or less, but studies haven’t evaluated the safety of heavier weight-lifting. 

  • Remember that your body is changing

During pregnancy, a woman’s joints become more relaxed, so it’s important not to overstretch, Dr. Davenport said. It’s also wise to avoid activities that require jumping or quick directional changes, which can stress the joints, too. Balance becomes less stable after the first trimester, which is why it’s also important to avoid activities that require careful balance, such as skiing. To stay safe, invest in supportive shoes — don’t go for your daily walk in flip-flops — because “you really need the right support for your feet,” Dr. Ramos said.

ACOG also suggests avoiding exercises that require you to lie on your back during pregnancy. Doing so can restrict blood flow to the heart, which might also restrict blood flow to the fetus. Usually, if this happens, you will feel light-headed and nauseous, Dr. Davenport said, which you can take as a sign to sit up.

WHEN TO WORRY

According to ACOG, women who experience any warning signs while exercising such as vaginal bleeding, regular painful contractions, amniotic fluid leakage, difficulty breathing, dizziness, headache, chest pain, muscle weakness, or calf pain or swelling should stop and contact their health provider immediately.

SOURCES

Dr. Margie Davenport, Ph.D., associate professor of kinesiology, sport and recreation and director of the Program for Pregnancy and Postpartum Health at the University of Alberta, Dec. 5, 2018

Dr. Diana Ramos, M.D., M.P.H., medical director for reproductive health for the Los Angeles Public Health Department, Dec. 5, 2018

Dr. Raul Artal, M.D., professor and chairman emeritus of the department of obstetrics, gynecology, and women’s health at the St. Louis University School of Medicine, Dec. 6, 2018

Dr. Gregory Davies, M.D., professor and chair of the division of maternal-fetal medicine at Queen’s University in Canada, Dec. 10, 2018

“Prenatal exercise is not associated with fetal mortality: a systematic review and meta-analysis,” British Journal of Sports Medicine, October 2018

“Impact of prenatal exercise on maternal harms, labour and delivery outcomes: a systematic review and meta-analysis,” British Journal of Sports Medicine, October 2018

“Effectiveness of exercise interventions in the prevention of excessive gestational weight gain and postpartum weight retention: a systematic review and meta-analysis,” British Journal of Sports Medicine, November 2018

“Prenatal exercise for the prevention of gestational diabetes mellitus and hypertensive disorders of pregnancy: a systematic review and meta-analysis,” British Journal of Sports Medicine, November 2018 “Exercise during pregnancy and the postpartum period,” UpToDate.com, November 2018

When a New Mother’s Joy is Entwined With Grief

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WHEN A NEW MOTHER’S JOY IS ENTWINED WITH GRIEF

Claire Zulkey

Maggie Nelson’s Mother’s Day tradition is to take a family photo at the grave of her daughter Emily, who was stillborn.

Every Mother’s Day, Maggie Nelson, her husband Mike, and their three young children head to the cemetery to take a family photo at the grave of their daughter, Emily. She was stillborn in 2010, but her twin, Mikey, now 7, survived.

“People say, ‘That’s kind of sad,’ but I can say, ‘I’m a proud mom of four. Here I am with all of them,’” Ms. Nelson, 39, said of the photos of her and the kids gathered on the grass by Emily’s stone plaque. A Bloomington, Ill., kindergarten teacher, she is a member of an unofficial sorority of women who experienced acute grief while postpartum.

The grief of fathers, adoptive mothers and other relatives after a family death is no less real, but postpartum women in mourning endure a particularly complicated blend of physical and emotional duress.

First, there are factors that can affect any new mother: the physical discomfort of childbirth, the lack of sleep and anxiety about the baby.

After giving birth, a new mother experiences rapid drops in levels of estrogen and progesterone and steep increases in prolactin. This can result in strong feelings of fatigue, irritability, insomnia and sadness known as the baby blues, which the National Institute of Mental Health says affects up to 80 percent of women.

This is not the same as the more intense, ongoing postpartum depression, which doesn’t reveal itself immediately, says Christiane Manzella, a senior psychologist who specializes in bereavement at the Seleni Institute, a women’s counseling center in New York.

Grief disrupts the body in different ways, with effects that can include a weakened immune system, a perilous situation for a new mother.

“I was a mess, to put it in a nutshell,” said Gayle Brandeis, 50, a Nevada writer whose mother committed suicide in 2009, days after Ms. Brandeis gave birth to a son. She experienced bouts of dizziness and had difficulty catching her breath. “I was really worried that my milk would dry out. I had a lot of stitches and walking was very painful,” she said. “I felt so disoriented in my body.”

Bereaved new mothers need people to remind them that there are no wrong feelings.

“It feels incredibly isolating because you’re supposed to be happy,” said a Boston-area 47-year-old mother of two who works in marketing and asked to be identified only by her first name, Susan. In 2012, when Susan was on bed rest with a high-risk pregnancy while living overseas, her mother died unexpectedly. She could not travel for the funeral and was able to attend only via Skype. When Susan eventually gave birth to a daughter, her relationship to her baby was not what she expected. Her daughter had acid reflux, screamed a lot and slept little.

“I thought there would be this bond that I wouldn’t want to break because she was somehow my mom incarnate. It wasn’t that at all.” Throughout this experience, Susan, like most grieving new mothers, wondered, “Is this normal?”

Pediatricians are on the front lines of spotting signs of postpartum depression in new mothers, since they see babies and mothers sooner and more frequently than obstetricians. Dr. Dafna Ahdoot, a Los Angeles pediatrician, has helped grieving new mothers who were anxious about their surviving baby’s health, concerned over whether they could take their newborn to an out-of-town funeral, or worried that their grief would negatively affect the baby. She advises grieving new mothers to prioritize their own eating and sleeping by securing help with night feedings and switching to formula feeding as needed if breast-feeding is too difficult.

Many therapists specialize in postpartum depression or grief and can address both. “It’s so hard to tease those symptoms apart,” says Juli Fraga, a San Francisco psychologist who specializes in postpartum depression.

A woman may think: “‘Why wouldn’t I be crying? I’m not sleeping.’” She helps her patients try meditation or breathing exercises to reduce levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, and then discuss, as needed, next steps like seeing a psychiatrist or integrative medical options.

Not all women have access to or even desire professional support. With initiatives like Therapy for Black Girls, the mental health community is working to build a bridge to African-American women who may mistrust medical institutions.

“African-American women are at higher risk for premature birth, and so we are losing our babies,” says Keisha Wells, a counselor in Columbus, Ga. “If you’re dealing with that and you don’t have anybody to talk to and you’re a person of color, that’s added sorrow.” Ms. Wells did not have access to this type of mental health care 11 years ago when her twin sons, born prematurely, both died. But she said she found comfort in faith-based support.

In the first weeks after a birth paired with a death, close loved ones can lighten a new mother’s load by making thoughtful executive decisions. Ms. Nelson’s twins’ room was painted half pink and half blue, and set up with two cribs. Friends repainted it and removed Emily’s crib. “Nobody asked,” Ms. Nelson said. “I didn’t know if I wanted to be asked. It had to happen, and friends and family had to take care of it.”

More than anything, most grieving new mothers need to express their grief. After Ms. Nelson took Mikey home, a friend brought over a picnic dinner.

“She put the basket on the counter, took both my hands in her hands and said ‘Tell me about Emily,’” Ms. Nelson recalled. She said she appreciated that opportunity. Other well-intentioned people misunderstood and said, “I didn’t mean to make you sad,” when she’d start to cry. She said she wanted to tell them: “Emily’s death makes me sad. You talking about her makes me hope-filled, it makes me proud. The tears are going to come, but let me do that.”

Many grieving mothers find solace in the stories of others, be they in books, online or in groups.

Ms. Nelson was intrigued by the show “This Is Us,” in which the main characters lose one of their triplets at birth and impulsively decide to adopt an abandoned baby. “The first episode made me angry that they were like, ‘We’ll just take this baby home instead,’ but when they later showed the raw emotions that she had, I was a little more on board,” Ms. Nelson said.

Mourning new mothers eventually find a way to honor both their lost loved one and their child using what is known as a continuing bond grief paradigm. Dr. Manzella said that it can be compatible with the ongoing waves of grief many mothers who have gone through loss experience, and that the thinking about grief has evolved from the “accept and let go” ideas in the classic “five stages of grief” model of the Swiss psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. “Why not continue loving in absence and getting solace from the sense of love?” she said.

Sometimes, finding a way to mark the loss can help.

Each year, Ms. Nelson and her family honor Emily’s birthday a day before Mikey’s, since her heart stopped beating the day before he was born.

“I have my day to be sad,” Ms. Nelson says. “We go to the cemetery with balloons. The kids are fully involved. Then the next day is all about Mikey.”

Dealing With Interfering Grandparents

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DEALING WITH INTERFERING GRANDPARENTS

Carla Bruce-Eddings

How to navigate a challenging relationship.

Parenting can often feel like trying to survive amid barely controlled chaos, so having a wise, experienced grandparent to help out can be lifesaving. But if that grandparent has trouble adhering to basic boundaries, it can feel as if the chaos has maddeningly multiplied.

When families expand, there is a significant shift in roles and responsibilities — one that is easy to make light of until conflicts emerge. Frustrating as these conflicts may be, it’s important to keep in mind that lots of families experience them. Joanne Gottlieb, L.C.S.W., a New York-based licensed clinical social worker, cited religious practices, disciplinary styles, technology and diet as some of the most common areas for intergenerational parenting conflict.

“I would place ‘intrusive grandparents’ in the general category of challenges that adults and couples face in managing relationships with their respective families of origin, and with parents in particular,” she said. “This is a constant theme of therapy.”

So how to best navigate the convergence of these new roles so that everyone feels respected and valued?

  • The moment you notice a negative pattern emerging, deal with it quickly. Don’t wait until you are ready to tear your hair out to approach Mom or Mom-in-Law.
  • Choose a time when everyone is calm to discuss conflicts — and remember that your parent or parent-in-law has your best interests at heart, and your child’s too. Put the child’s needs first – not your own.
  • Bear in mind that child-rearing advice often changes from one generation to the next, so there are bound to be some ideas that a grandparent subscribes to — most likely ones that you were raised with — that you find outdated now.

It’s vital to remember, in the thick of it, why grandparents’ presence in your child’s life is so crucial. “Grandparent love and knowledge is essential to a child’s self-esteem and self-identity,” said Roslyn Hunter, L.C.S.W., a psychotherapist in New York. “They need to see themselves as part of something larger than their parents. They need to find their place and feel part of a family that has a history.”

To try to resolve conflicts, therapists suggest you should say what you need to say — clearly, respectfully and, if necessary, more than once. Meagan Hammerbacher, mom to a 3- and 5-year-old, is committed to clear and consistent communication with her mother-in-law — even if it hasn’t yielded the desired results just yet.

“I have asked my mother-in-law multiple times to please refrain from giving my children sweet treats and sugary drinks, and to consider the food that she generally feeds my children. Sadly, she rarely listens to my requests,” she said. Enlisting her husband to join the discussion was difficult at first, but she encouraged him to attend a few therapy sessions to feel more comfortable about opposing his mother, and now they are on the same page.

Such harmony between partners is the ideal first step in approaching tough conversations with a parent or parent-in-law, but it has not led to harmony in this case. “In all honesty I do not see the situation being resolved because his mother is of a different era,” Hammerbacher said. “I have realized that she is never going to listen to me and follow my directive, and it is not worth the constant fight with my partner because he does not want to fight with his mother.”

Until she feels ready to re-approach this conversation, Hammerbacher has decided to back off: “The only other resolution is to teach my children about healthy eating so they can advocate for themselves,” she said. “It is more likely that she will listen to my children when they tell her ‘Grandma, that food is not good for me!’ ”

Other parents live with their frustrations for the sake of the overall relationship. For Tanya Copenhaver, 41, continual conversations with her mother about her 4-year-old have been stressful, but she has decided she can deal with the dynamic. “I often feel judged by my mother when it comes to my parenting,” she said. “I used to let these things really bother me, and often, I still find myself starting to defend myself.” But she has come to realize that her mother truly does have the best intentions, misguided as her efforts sometimes feel.

“Often I bite my tongue and remind myself she means well and loves my daughter dearly,” Copenhaver said. “And I remind myself that the benefits of having my mom so involved in our lives far outweighs the frustration I feel.”

Grandparents find navigating this relationship tricky, too. Keesha Davis has strong opinions when it comes to her 1-year-old granddaughter, but over the course of her first year, she has intuited the best times to speak up and to remain silent. “I’m still adjusting … I’ve learned to just be quiet, observe and chime in when I really think I should chime in,” she said. Recently she had a disagreement with her daughter and daughter-in-law about giving their daughter apple juice while babysitting. While the mothers stood firm — no juice — Davis told me that they are open to advice in other areas. “I think they’re coming to terms with saying, ‘You know what, my mother is very logical when it comes to certain things,’ ” she said. “I’ve raised kids, I babysit kids. … So they do sit back and say, ‘Wait a minute. What she is saying is correct and we can benefit from listening.’ ”

Try to bear in mind that each generation has its own parenting beliefs, and parenting advice has changed over the years. Today’s grandparents put their babies to sleep on their stomachs and used crib bumpers — practices that are no longer followed. Parental bans on corporal punishment can also be perplexing for grandparents, many of whom adhered to the “spare the rod” justification for spanking.

In these cases, making your stance crystal clear from the start is of utmost importance, Gottlieb said. “The parent needs to communicate clearly that physical discipline is not permitted,” she said. “If the parent is not sure that the grandparent, or any caregiver, will respect this wish, then I would advise that the parent not leave their child alone with that person.” Try to avoid long explanations or arguments; your rationale can be as short as a simple reminder that cultural norms have changed, so much so that a child’s mentioning in school that he was hit could prompt a call to child protective services.

“I would say that one of the frequent issues is cultural, particularly for immigrant families,” Hunter said. “Grandparents expect parents to follow cultural traditions from the old country. Parents often resist because old traditions are not practical for modern life.” In these cases, it’s important to avoid the instinct to be dismissive or overly critical of a practice that you may not understand. After all, your parent raised you. Talking through the reasons for your parenting decisions, and listening to grandparents talk about their own philosophies, may not lead to a quick solution, but it will help promote understanding and reduce discord.

Hunter reminds parents that they have the final word. “It’s important to remember that grandparents do not actually hold more power than the parent — even if the grandparent in question is providing some kind of support,” she said. If a parent asserting herself to advocate for her child jeopardizes the relationship with the grandparent, or vice versa, that is a different issue. “In either case the child’s needs are not being put first,” Hunter said. “The adult’s needs are being put first with the child being used as a tool.”

Parenting is a lifelong job; it doesn’t end when a child has entered adulthood. You are charged with creating a safe, nurturing environment for your child, as well as learning from the wisdom and, yes, missteps of your parents. A three-generation dynamic should feel fluid and mutually supportive, especially during times of conflict, experts stressed. Demonstrating positive examples of communication and compromise with a parent or parent-in-law will help your child navigate her own approach to problem solving, as these are skills that “make emotions and the world feel manageable,” Gottlieb added.

Finally, it always helps to take a deep breath and remember that your child has different needs from the other people in her life. Despite Tanya Copenhaver’s occasional misunderstandings with her mother, she is willing to turn a blind eye from time to time for the sake of offering her daughter a crucial childhood benefit: “Grandma’s house isn’t home, and grandparents get to have a different relationship with our children than we do,” she said. “When I’m not there, it’s O.K. if my daughter eats an extra candy or gets to eat applesauce, graham crackers and a marshmallow for lunch. Those are memories she will have forever.”

Remembering her own loving relationship with her grandmother, she added: “I can only hope that my daughter gets to experience that special bond with my mom.”

A Better Me Makes A Better We: An Interview with Ellyn Bader, Ph.D.

Dozie Conflicts, Dating, Decision making, Depression, Family, Growth, Human Behavior and Attitude, Life and Living, Marriage, Personal Growth and Development, Relationships, The Genders, Uncategorized, Worrying and Anxiety 0 Comment

A BETTER ME MAKES A BETTER WE: AN INTERVIEW WITH ELLYN BADER, Ph.D.

Kyle Benson

Interview Guest: Ellyn Bader, Ph.D., is a co-founder of The Developmental Model of Couples Therapy, which integrates attachment theory and differentiation. Through her work at The Couples Institute, she has specialized in helping couples transform their relationships since 1984.

The idealized relationship where partners are fused at the hip is not a healthy relationship, as it doesn’t allow for the unique differences of each partner. Bader highlights this fusion as a conflict avoidant stance that happens when one partner feels anxious or uncomfortable and attempts to merge with their spouse.

One way of doing this is becoming more like your partner in hopes of being loved. There’s a deep fear that says, “If I express my needs and have different needs than my partner, I’m going to be abandoned.”

The other conflict avoidant stance is loving your partner at arm’s length. The fear in this stance says, “If I become more open and vulnerable, I’m going to get swallowed up and lose my sense of self.”

As Dr. David Schnarch states in his book entitled Passionate Marriage, “Giving up your individuality to be together is as defeating in the long run as giving up your relationship to maintain your individuality. Either way, you end up being less of a person with less of a relationship.”

Fusion happens when a person is fearful of encountering differences. These can be minor differences including how one spends their time or their hobbies, or major differences such as conflict style and desire for togetherness. The opposite of fusion is differentiation.

The Risk of Growth

Bader describes differentiation as an active process “in which partners define themselves to each other.” Differentiation requires the risk of being open to growth and being honest not only with your partner, but also with yourself.

  • If you’re anxious, it could mean realizing that you lean on partner so much that if they become unstable, you both fall down. Your demands on your partner and the way you discuss conflict may be pushing your partner away, which is the very thing you fear.
  • If you’re avoidant, it could mean noticing that you neglect your partner’s needs and prioritize yourself over your relationship. As a result, you perpetuate the loneliness you feel.
    To grow in your relationship requires a willingness to stand on what Bader calls your “developmental edge” and differentiate yourself as an individual. To risk getting closer to your partner without pushing them away.

What Differentiation Looks Like

In conflict, a differentiated lover can give space to their partner who is emotionally overwhelmed while also remaining close enough to be caring and supportive, but not so close that they lose themselves emotionally. Instead of reacting with overwhelming emotion, a differentiated partner, according to Bader, expresses curiosity about their partner’s emotional state:

“Can you tell me more about what’s going on?”
“Can you tell me about these feelings?”

The more differentiated you are, the less likely you are to take things as personally. As a result, you can soothe yourself or reach out to be soothed by your partner in a helpful way. Instead of saying, “You’re such a jerk. You never care for me,” a differentiated partner would say, “I’m feeling really overwhelmed and lonely. Could you give me a hug?”

To differentiate is to develop a secure way of relating to your partner. This earned security, as highlighted by Bader, is created both internally and developed within the context of a relationship. This requires being authentic with your feelings and needs.

You can cultivate a secure and functioning relationship by recognizing and taking responsibility for your part in creating unhealthy dynamics in your relationship. When you do this, you can then express your needs, desires, and wishes in a way that allows you and your partner to work together to meet each other’s needs.

When both partners are whole, not only is there more flexibility in the marriage, but there is also more intimacy.

Getting a Good Night’s Sleep Without Drugs

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GETTING A GOOD NIGHT’S SLEEP WITHOUT DRUGS

Jane E. Brody

Alternatives to prescription drugs for insomnia offer better, safer and more long-lasting solutions, experts say.

Shakespeare wisely recognized that sleep “knits up the ravell’d sleave of care” and relieves life’s physical and emotional pains. Alas, this “chief nourisher in life’s feast,” as he called it, often eludes millions of people who suffer from insomnia. Desperate to fall asleep or fall back to sleep, many resort to Ambien or another of the so-called “Z drugs” to get elusive shut-eye.

But except for people with short-term sleep-disrupting issues, like post-surgical pain or bereavement, these sedative-hypnotics have a time-limited benefit and can sometimes cause more serious problems than they might prevent. They should not be used for more than four or five weeks.

In April, the Food and Drug Administration added a boxed warning to the prescription insomnia drugs zolpidem (Ambien, Edluar, Intermezzo and Zolpimist), zaleplon (Sonata) and eszopiclone (Lunesta) following reports of injury and death from sleepwalking, sleep-driving and engaging in other hazardous activities while not fully awake.

Last July, a Georgia woman was arrested when she drove the wrong way on a highway the day after using Ambien, as prescribed, to help her sleep. Although she had consumed no alcohol, she flunked a standard sobriety test and told police she was unaware of how she ended up going the wrong way.

Although extreme reactions to these sleep drugs are thought to be uncommon, they are unpredictable and can be disastrous when they occur. Some have resulted in vehicular fatalities.

As many as 20 percent to 30 percent of people in the general population sleep poorly. They may have difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep, some awaken much too early, while others do not feel rested despite spending a full night seemingly asleep in bed. For one person in 10, insomnia is a chronic problem that repeats itself night after night. Little wonder that so many resort to sleeping pills to cope with it.

“Short sleep is not just an irritant. It has real consequences beyond just feeling crummy the next day,” Adam P. Spira, a sleep researcher at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told me.

However, Dr. Spira and other experts report that there are better, safer and more long-lasting alternatives than prescription drugs to treat this common problem. The alternatives are especially valuable for older people who metabolize drugs more slowly, are more likely to have treatable underlying causes of their insomnia and are more susceptible to adverse side effects of medications.

“Insomnia is typically undertreated, and nonpharmacologic interventions are underused by health care practitioners,” Dr. Nabil S. Kamel, a geriatrician now at Cox Health in Springfield, Mo., and Dr. Julie K. Gammack, a geriatrician at the St. Louis University Health Sciences Center, wrote in The American Journal of Medicine.

In other words, when persistent insomnia is a problem, before your doctor writes a prescription for a sleeping pill, ask whether there are other remedies that may be safer, more effective and longer lasting.

For example, if pain or other symptoms of a medical disorder are keeping you awake, the first step should be treatment of the underlying ailment to minimize its sleep-disrupting effects. I once spent three sleepless nights tortured by intense itchiness until a dermatologist prescribed medication for what turned out to be an invasion of bird mites. More recently, my middle-of-the-night leg cramps have been nearly entirely eliminated by consuming eight ounces of quinine-containing tonic water (actually, diet tonic) every night before bed. If you can’t handle that amount of liquid close to bedtime, drink it earlier in the evening or perhaps try a herbal remedy that I use when traveling: Hyland’s Leg Cramps, which contains quinine as one of its active ingredients.

Sometimes, the medication given to treat a chronic ailment interferes with the ability to get a good night’s sleep. In that case, the doctor may be able to prescribe a lower dose, substitute a different drug or adjust the timing. But when the symptoms of a chronic ailment itself disrupts sleep, treatment by a specialist, including perhaps an expert in pain management, may be needed to improve your ability to sleep. If persistent emotional problems are what keep you awake, consider consulting a psychologist, psychiatric social worker or psychiatrist before reaching for a sleeping pill.

Cognitive behavioral therapy is now considered the best treatment for insomnia, especially for older adults. It teaches people to challenge disruptive negative thinking and replace it with positive thoughts that counter arousal and induce relaxation. Before going to bed, try using soothing imagery or meditation to reduce cognitive arousal.

The American College of Physicians recommends cognitive behavioral therapy as “the first-line treatment for adults with chronic insomnia.”

It is much safer than drugs and, unlike sleeping pills that work only when taken and shouldn’t be used long-term, cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, or CBT-I, teaches effective strategies that continue to work long after the therapy ends.

The physicians’ college suggests that if needed, sleep medication should be used only short-term while learning the techniques of cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia.

Also helpful is what sleep experts call stimulus-control therapy — limiting bedroom time to sleeping and sex. You learn to associate the bedroom with sleep by avoiding activities incompatible with it. If you spend too much time lying sleepless in bed, your brain starts to link the bedroom with not sleeping. Also avoid going to bed when you’re not sleepy.

If you don’t fall asleep after about 20 minutes in bed, Dr. Kamel and Dr. Gammack recommend getting up, perhaps taking a bath or reading, then returning to bed when you feel sleepy.

If all else fails, sleep-restriction therapy can be effective even after a week or two, especially at eliminating prolonged wakefulness in the middle of the night. It doesn’t restrict sleep itself but limits the time spent not sleeping by restricting time in bed to how long you currently sleep. Go to bed at about the same time every night, set an alarm to get up, and maintain that waking time every day for at least two weeks no matter how much you slept the night before. Finally, gradually extend your time in bed by 15 to 30 minutes, allowing a week between each extension, until you are able to get the amount of restful sleep you need with little or no wakefulness in the middle of the night.

12 Insightful Lessons to Help You Have a Better Life

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12 INSIGHTFUL LESSONS TO HELP YOU HAVE A BETTER LIFE

Team Lovepanky

Can you change your life for the better by changing the way you think? Here are 12 insightful lessons that can lead you to a happier, better life.

There are many things that people must learn to accept about life in order to be truly happy, and lead a better life.

While it is difficult for most of us to admit many uncomfortable truths, once we do, we are able to lead a much more fulfilling life.

Accepting many of these things takes time, and often doesn’t happen until we feel unsatisfied in our current situation.

Take, for example, my own experience with learning to accept a few particular things about life.

My personal confusion and life wanderings

After finishing my undergrad, I landed a decent job as an assistant project manager at a university office for sustainability. In terms of entry-level positions it was a good one, and of course, it would look great on my resume.

I was where I was supposed to be. In a relevant job position, gaining valuable career experience, working to save money for those looming student loans, in a relationship, meeting up with friends after work, buying various consumer products, visiting my family at least once a month, and generally meeting most of society’s other expectations.

The problem was I would sit at my desk from 8am until 5:30pm staring at my computer screen. While I knew the projects I was working on were important for improving sustainability on campus, I found it difficult to connect with what I was doing.

Most of my friends seemed to be focusing on buying the latest fashion trends, and drinking away most of their income. While I also participated in these entertaining behaviors, I continued to feel disconnected from the people surrounding me.

My relationship was only average. At first I thought it was true love, and then over time, I realized it was a safe situation for both of us. We were just sitting on the truth that neither of us was getting what we needed or wanted.

Nevertheless, I was an example of a successfully functioning individual. Yet I felt unsatisfied with my life, even though according to most people it was exactly where I was supposed to be.

While my experience might start to sound cliché, what happened next led to an important learning curve in my life, and to something completely different and absolutely satisfying.

I left my assistant project manager position and headed off to travel Southeast Asia. Over three months I visited amazing places, met very interesting people, ate partially developed duck eggs, drank local alcohol, volunteered with rescued elephants, and did some other typical travelers things.

Insightful life lessons that can lead you to a better life

Where I went and whom I met wasn’t all that different to what many people experience while traveling. But what was really vital was the time away from my “supposed to”life.

I had some serious time to reflect on where exactly I was in my life, and where I was headed. I noticed that many things I was doing didn’t actually make me happy.

This learning curve and time for reflection led me to 12 absolutely crucial things to learn and accept about life. They can lead you to a happier and much more satisfying life.

#1 You will never be able to please everyone

It is absolutely impossible to satisfy everyone else’s expectations and demands. You will drive yourself mental if you don’t accept the fact that you cannot live your life tailoring every move to please other people.

This goes for family, friends, and even bosses. Of course, you need to perform certain tasks and fulfill expectations of your role in an organization, or even relationship.

But, for example, that does not mean living up to your manager’s belief that you should be available seven days a week to answer various emails, or your mother’s perspective that you will only be happy once you own a white picket fence on your well-manicured lawn.

You must let go of the idea that you can please everyone around you. You will ultimately end up sacrificing something that is essential to your own happiness.

#2 There are many definitions of success, find your own

Each of us is responsible for defining what represents success for ourselves. To some people success is a six-figure paycheck, mortgage on a two-story home, and new car, while to others it can be something completely different.

You need to map out and understand what you personally need to achieve in your life to be considered successful by your own standards. If that is a nonprofit job that doesn’t rake in the big bucks, but allows you to follow your passion and purpose, then so be it.

#3 You friends will most definitely change over time

Not many of us keep the exact same friends into adulthood. Of course, you may find a soul mate in one or two of your friends. But you are also bound to lose friends, and gain new ones.

We change friendships over time because we are constantly changing and growing. Interests evolve, and people transform into very different individuals. Changing friends usually isn’t a negative thing, and instead, is a reflection of your personal growth.

#4 Despite what you’ve always been told, you can choose your family

I often read that you cannot change you family so you should figure out how to deal with them now, or you’ll lose your mind trying later in life. Yet, I don’t fully believe this. You are absolutely stuck with some people who you are related to by blood. But that doesn’t mean you have to consider them important people in your life.

There are some family members that we absolutely can choose. What about our life partners? We are fully able to choose the person we want to spend the rest of our life with. We get to hand select that person, and assure that they hold most of the qualities we desire, and meet our fundamental needs and wants.

So, in fact we can choose our family. While some relations might be set in blood, others are up to us.

#5 Relationships take a lot of hard work

Building off on #4, relationships take a lot of work in order to be happy and healthy. Whether this is a relationship with a friend, family member, professional, or life partner, you are going to need to work at it.

Working at a relationship means taking the time to understand the other person and their goals, finding out how to be a positive presence in their lives, and vice versa – and how to compromise.

Human relationships are absolutely necessary to feel connected to your world, and to feel happiness. But you need to make the effort in these relationships in order to reap the benefits.

#6 If you want to see change, you need to make it happen

Don’t sit around waiting for great things to happen in your life. If you want and need something to change, you need to be actively involved in pursuing results.

This can be in terms of relationships, jobs, personal well-being, and a lot of other things. You must be proactive in doing. Simply thinking about change is not enough. You need to take the steps involved with altering your current situation.

#7 You need to get healthy

Your body is your own personal sanctuary. If you treat it like it’s not important and fill it with toxins and chemicals, it will start to resist you. You need to find a balance that works for you and your lifestyle. Not all of us want to be at the gym five days a week, but that doesn’t mean you should never lift a finger.

Whether it is a walk down your street, or a full on cross-fit workout. You need to move, and after you move, you need to fill yourself with fresh food meant for human consumption. Not the boxes of human manipulated ingredients. Feel good about your body. It will change over time, but it’s what you’ve got.

#8 You should care about things happening around you

There are buckets of social, political, economic and environmental problems facing our generation, and many future generations to come. You need to stop living in your comfortable bubble and start becoming educated on important matters around you. War and conflict continues to plague countries around the world, resource exploitation and climate change are real issues happening now.

You cannot avoid these things any longer, and you need to take some form of responsibility in making our world a better place. That doesn’t mean starting a multi-million dollar charity, or donating 40 hours of your time a week. But it does mean you need to take small steps towards becoming a knowledgeable and more sustainable human being.

#9 If you want something, take it

If there is something that you want, you know you deserve, and you will take full responsibility for, then you need to take it. Stop worrying if you are going to offend someone, and go for it.

If this is a promotion you know you deserve, or a relationship you know is bound for greatness, take the risk and make it happen.

#10 You need to find a purpose

Having a passion is half the battle, but what allows your passion to translate into effective action is purpose. You must define your purpose in order to pursue meaningful life goals. That can be career related, or just in general what you strive to achieve in your lifetime.

#11 You define your own happiness

Well, I am not a huge Kanye West fan but he makes a valid point, “I refuse to accept other people’s ideas of happiness for me. As if there’s a ‘one size fits all’ standard for happiness.”

If you can clearly outline what allows you to be happy, then you’ve accomplished what some people strive towards, for their entire lives. Know what makes you happy, because if you try to live someone else’s life, you are bound to be unsatisfied.

#12 Take the more difficult route and be yourself

Defining purpose, finding passion, knowing what makes you happy and defining your personal vision of success are extremely difficult to comprehend and achieve.

But if you can organize just exactly how you want to live your own life, and truly be yourself, regardless of other’s expectations and judgments, you are going to find fulfillment and happiness. It’s your life, and we really only do have one chance, so it’s better to be yourself.

My epiphany

So after having time away from my “supposed to” life I came home thinking about what changes I needed to make, and what exactly I needed to accept.

I ended up saving money working at a retail job, that for two months was actually quite rewarding, and moving back to Southeast Asia to find my own success and happiness.

It wasn’t exactly what people in my life were anticipating from me, although my ex-boyfriend wasn’t all that surprised. I did lose quite a few friendships because of their unwillingness to make the effort over such physical distance. My family however, has been extremely supportive for the most part.

Overall, I am extremely happy and successful. I feel like I am growing into an individual that I can be proud of. Although I am in my late twenties and I still don’t have a mortgage or a car, and rent a small studio and ride a bicycle, I feel liberated from what I was supposed to do, because now I am doing what makes me happy.

Well, it can be easier said than done, but if you are willing to learn to accept a few lessons about life, then you will set yourself up for a completely personalized journey, one that you’ll be proud of.

Why Women, but Not Men, Are Judged for a Messy House

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WHY WOMEN, BUT NOT MEN, ARE JUDGED FOR A MESSY HOUSE

Claire Cain Miller

“The Smiths share the drudgery of housework, for they both have important war jobs,” the Office of War Information wrote about this photo circa 1944.

They’re still held to a higher social standard, which explains why they’re doing so much housework, studies show.

Even in 2019, messy men are given a pass and messy women are unforgiven. Three recently published studies confirm what many women instinctively know: Housework is still considered women’s work — especially for women who are living with men.

Women do more of such work when they live with men than when they live alone, one of the studies found. Even though men spend more time on domestic tasks than men of previous generations, they’re typically not doing traditionally feminine chores like cooking and cleaning, another showed. The third study pointed to a reason: Socially, women — but not men — are judged negatively for having a messy house and undone housework.

It’s an example of how social mores, whether or not an individual believes in them, influence behavior, the social scientists who did the research say. And when it comes to gender, expectations about housework have been among the slowest to change.

“Everyone knows what the stereotype or expectations might be, so even if they don’t endorse them personally, it will still affect their behavior,” even if they say they have progressive views about gender roles, said Sarah Thébaud, a sociologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and an author of one of the papers.

The additional time that women spend on unpaid household labor is a root of gender inequality — it influences how men and women relate at home, and how much time women spend on paid work.

On average, women spend 2.3 hours a day on house tasks, and men spend 1.4 hours, according to Department of Labor data. Even when men say they split housework evenly, the data shows they do not. (Women do more of these kinds of chores in the office, too.)

One of the recent studies, in the journal Demography, analyzed American Time Use Survey data and found that mothers married to men did more housework than single mothers, slept less and had less leisure time.

“One possibility is what people believe is expected of them to be a good wife and partner is still really strong, and you’re held to those standards when you’re living with someone,” said Joanna Pepin, a sociologist at the University of Maryland, who wrote the paper with Liana Sayer, a colleague at Maryland, and Lynne Casper from the University of Southern California.

Other possibilities, Ms. Pepin said, were that men created more housework; single mothers were more tired; or children did more chores when they lived with a single mother.

Women tend to do more indoor chores, research shows, like cleaning and cooking, most of which occur daily. Men do more outdoor chores, like lawn mowing or car washing, which happen less often.

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Another recent study, in the journal Gender & Society, looked at people in opposite-sex marriages and found that even though men who live in cities spend less time on outdoor chores than suburban or rural men, they don’t spend any additional time on other kinds of chores. Women spend the same amount of time on chores regardless of where they live.

The pattern demonstrates how much housework is considered women’s work, said the researchers, Natasha Quadlin at Ohio State University and Long Doan at the University of Maryland, who used data from the American Time Use Survey and the Current Population Survey.

One way to be masculine is to do typically male chores, they concluded — and another way is to refuse to do typically female ones.

These studies relied on survey data to show what people do. A study published last month in Sociological Methods & Research tried to explain why women do more housework. The researchers conducted an experiment to uncover the beliefs that drive people’s behavior.

They showed 624 people a photo of a messy living room and kitchen — dishes on the counters, a cluttered coffee table, blankets strewn about — or the clean version of the same space. (They used MTurk, a survey platform popular with social scientists; the participants were slightly more educated and more likely to be white and liberal than the population at large.)

The results debunked the age-old excuse that women have an innately lower tolerance for messiness. Men notice the dust and piles. They just aren’t held to the same social standards for cleanliness, the study found.

When participants were told that a woman occupied the clean room, it was judged as less clean than when a man occupied it, and she was thought to be less likely to be viewed positively by visitors and less comfortable with visitors.

Both men and women were penalized for having a messy room. When respondents were told it was occupied by a man, they said that it was in more urgent need of cleaning and that the men were less responsible and hardworking than messy women. The mess seemed to play into a stereotype of men as lazy slobs, the researchers said.

But there was a key difference:Unlike for women, participants said messy men were not likely to be judged by visitors or feel uncomfortable having visitors over.

“It may activate negative stereotypes about men if they’re messy, but it’s inconsequential because there’s no expected social consequence to that,” said Ms. Thébaud, who did the study with the sociologists Sabino Kornrich of Emory and Leah Ruppanner of the University of Melbourne. “It’s that ‘boys will be boys’ thing.”

Most of the time, respondents said a woman would be responsible for cleaning the room — especially if the occupants were in a heterosexual marriage and both were working full time.

“The ways it gets reinforced are so subtle,” said Darcy Lockman, the author of a new book about the unequal division of labor, “All the Rage,” and a clinical psychologist. “‘I should relieve my husband of burdens’ — it’s so automatic.”

Social scientists have been observing these pressures for decades. In 1989, the sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild wrote “The Second Shift,” documenting how even in dual-career couples, women did significantly more housework and child care than men. In 1998, the sociologist Barbara Risman described in the book “Gender Vertigo” how people feel pressure from members of both genders to perform certain roles.

Since then, men’s and women’s roles have changed in many parts of life — but not regarding housekeeping. In a study last year, Ms. Risman showed that Americans are now more likely to value gender equality at work than at home.

Bigger forces shape these beliefs. Employers increasingly demand employees to be on call at work, for example, which can end up forcing one parent (usually the mother) to step back from work to be on call at home. This happens for same-sex couples, too, showing that it’s not just about gender — it’s also about the way paid work is set up.

Policies that encourage men to take on more responsibility at home — like use-it-or-lose-it paternity leave in Canada and Scandinavian countries — could increase their involvement, evidence suggests.

The stereotypes start with what boys are taught. Research has found that when mothers work for pay and fathers do household chores, their sons become adults who spend more time on housework.

So far, what we know about the next generation is that girls are doing less housework. But boys aren’t doing that much more.

Paternity Leave Has Long-Lasting Benefits. So Why Don’t More American Men Take It?

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PATERNITY LEAVE HAS LONG-LASTING BENEFITS. SO WHY DON’T MORE AMERICAN MEN TAKE IT?

Nathaniel Popper

Men who take leave are less likely to get divorced, and have better relationships with their children, research shows.

In 2017, my family and I began an unintended experiment, testing the effects of paternity leave.

When my first son was born in 2012, I had only recently joined The New York Times and all I got off was the week of vacation I had stored up at the time.

By the time my wife and I had our second son in 2017, the newspaper had significantly ramped up its support for new fathers, and I got 10 fully-paid weeks to spend with our growing family. For my wife and me, those first two months of life with a newborn were just as sleepless as they’d been the first time around. But there were fewer fights and less resentment, and my wife got back to her own work more quickly.

Long after I returned to the office, I noticed little differences in the way I related to my second son that seemed most easily explained by the extra time I’d spent with him. To this day he regularly calls out for me in the night in a way that my first son rarely did. And when I am with him, I feel a certain intangible sense of ease that has only come more recently with my older son. This feeling of ease, along with my growing comfort with wrangling both kids at once, have had predictably positive effects on my wife, reducing her stress levels, and making us both happier.

While I’ve always been hesitant to attribute too many of the subsequent improvements in our family life to the parental leave I took in 2017, a growing body of research suggests that paternity leave does, in fact, have far broader effects than we might have anticipated, including some which endure years after the leave period itself.

Men Who Take Paternity Leave Are Less Likely to Get Divorced

Over the last two years, Richard Petts, a sociology professor at Ball State University, and Chris Knoester, a sociology professor at Ohio State University, have co-authored a series of papers, analyzing data from long-term surveys of thousands of American families. Their research demonstrates that paternity leave provides lasting benefits, not only to relationships between fathers and their children, but also to mothers and to relationships between the parents.

In their most recent paper, published in May 2019, Dr. Petts and Dr. Knoester found that, even nine years later, children whose fathers took at least two weeks of paternity leave after they were born reported feeling closer to their fathers than children with fathers who did not take leave. In research on married parents for a forthcoming paper, the sociologists found that even relatively short periods of paternity leave caused couples’ divorce risk to drop and to remain significantly lower for as many as six years to come, even as their children reached school age.

“The big news in the U.S. is that the boost is not just in the year or two after a child’s birth,” Dr. Petts told me. “It seems to be more sustained.”

This new work on American families builds on several earlier papers, mostly from Europe, where paternity leave is more common, which found that fathers are, in the long term, more likely to remain involved in parenting and to equitably divide household chores with their partners if they take time off after their children arrive. A recent study from Swedenfound that mothers whose partners were offered flexible paid leave in the year after a child’s birth were less likely to need antibiotics and anti-anxiety medication.

Despite mounting evidence of the benefits of paid parental leave for fathers as well as mothers, occasional high-profile news about a major international company offering paternity leave, and legal wins such as the settlement in which JPMorgan Chase agreed to provide equal benefits to fathers and mothers, the expansion of paternity leave programs in the United States remains slow.

Public enthusiasm for paternity leave has been growing: A 2016 Pew Research Center study found that nearly 70 percent of Americans support some form of paid leave for new fathers. There are signs of a rapid cultural shift as well. Though, in 2014, New York Mets second baseman Daniel Murphy faced widespread criticism for taking three days off for the birth of his son, just four years later, basketball player Dwayne Wade was showered with support when he missed six games following his daughter’s birth in 2018.

Nevertheless, recent surveys suggest that, while most American men take some time off work after the birth or adoption of a child, most take no more than a few days’ leave.

Why Aren’t American Men Taking Leave?

There are several reasons new fathers in the United States return to work so quickly, the most obvious being the lack of a national policy mandating paid leave for all workers. The Family and Medical Leave Act guarantees 12 weeks of unpaid parental leave, but its eligibility requirements are strict (to qualify, an employee must have worked at least 1250 hours during the 12 months before the start of the leave period, for an organization employing at least 50 people within a 75-mile radius), and many American workers do not meet them.

Even fewer American parents have access to paid family leave. Though six states — California, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Washington and Massachusetts — as well as the District of Columbia have passed paid family leave laws, their provisions vary. A March 2018 national survey conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that only 16 percent of workers in the United States have access to some paid family leave through private-sector employers.

And research suggests that, even when fathers do gain access to paid parental leave, they may be reluctant to take it. After California’s paid family leave law, the first such law enacted in the United States, took effect in 2004, economists Charles L. Baum and Christopher Ruhm found that the percentage of men taking time off after a child’s birth rose only modestly; the average period of parental leave taken increased by nearly five weeks for mothers, but only two to three days for fathers.

California fathers’ caution about embracing paid paternity leave wasn’t entirely irrational. Some studies do show that taking paternity leave can damage a man’s professional reputation and affect his future earning potential.

“Men who take paternity leave do tend to be stigmatized and viewed as less committed employees,” said Rebecca Glauber, a professor of sociology at the University of New Hampshire.

How to Make Paternity Leave an American Norm

The successful expansion of paternity leave programs in other industrialized nations suggests that these cultural barriers can be overcome. Certain policies have been shown to be especially effective in encouraging men to take full advantage of paternity leave benefits. The adoption of a so-called “daddy quota,” for example — a use-it-or-lose-it period of paid leave earmarked for new fathers — has successfully boosted paternity leave participation rates in several Scandinavian countries. In 2006, in a departure from the rest of Canada, Quebec adopted a “daddy quota” similar to the Scandinavian model, offering five weeks of dedicated, non-transferable, government-paid leave to new fathers in the province.

Within two years, 75 percent of new fathers in Quebec were taking paternity leave, up from 22 percent before the use-it-or-lose-it “daddy quota” was implemented, according to research by Ankita Patnaik, an economist at Mathematica Policy Research in Washington, D.C.

Dr. Patnaik found that men in Quebec who’d taken the “daddy quota” continued to spend more time on household work, even one to three years after completing their paternity leave. Further, Dr. Patnaik’s research found, these fathers’ increased participation in household tasks appeared to free up their children’s mothers to pursue their own professional ambitions. One to three years after childbirth, mothers in Quebec whose partners had taken the “daddy quota” were working an hour longer per day, on average, and were 7 percent more likely to be employed full-time, Dr. Patnaik found.

Richard Petts, the Ball State University sociologist who researches the impact of paternity leave on American families, said that he did not find solid evidence that paternity leave boosts mothers’ careers, but that may simply be because American fathers take much shorter paternity leaves than their Canadian counterparts.

For my part, I came out of my own paternity leave with an easy ability to take both of the kids as soon as I was done at work, or to handle sick days when they came up. That allowed my wife to transition back to her own job more quickly, and to commit with more confidence to new projects. We are both still as overwhelmed as most other parents of little kids, but at least we feel like we’re muddling through it together.

Becoming Parents to Ourselves

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BECOMING PARENTS TO OURSELVES

Eldar Sarajlic

My wife gave birth to a child. The child gave birth to a new thought.

Philosophy has always appealed to me more than fatherhood. I used to imagine my life as a sequence of quiet contemplations, readings and travels. I did not think much about children, though I assumed I would have one at some point. Being a father was not something I associated with a life devoted to philosophy.

However, all of that changed when my daughter was born in 2014, three months after I defended my doctoral dissertation. In a span of a summer, I became both a father and a philosopher. The two merged in me and created an identity that was entirely new. Before her birth, I was primarily interested in political philosophy. I was drawn to the questions of social and political justice, liberalism and legitimacy. Then, as my child gestated in her mother’s womb, a new set of interests and ideas started to grow in my mind. My wife gave birth to a child; the child gave birth to a new thought.

Parenthood, as I was about to learn, provides many paths for reflection. Philosophers typically ask a whole range of questions about parenthood: Is there a moral justification for having children? What are the moral dimensions to raising a child? Now that I found myself a parent as well as a philosopher, I began asking similar questions: How should I raise my child? How can I be a good father?

As most parents of newborns know, the first months of parenthood are a mix of bliss, fear, frustration and most of all, sleeplessness. It was in those wee hours in the first months of fatherhood that my philosophical concern stumbled upon one particular question: Who will my daughter grow up to be? What will be her identity? As I observed her tiny bodily features, I kept thinking about the possible futures ahead of her. Will she be able to become whomever she wants?

There is an autobiographical background to this question. I was born in Bosnia and Herzegovina into a secular Muslim family, and lived in the country for most of the first 30 years of my life. Coming of age during a brutal ethnic conflict in the early 1990s, I was corralled into a cultural identity I was told belonged to me. Being persecuted for being Muslim generated a personal and cultural resistance in me. I adopted and celebrated that scorned identity. Gradually, I became a Muslim. I embraced the target on my back and made it my own. But adopting an identity as a form of resistance, as I learned quickly, can take one only so far. Like an ill-fitting polyester suit, this identity itched, and I yearned to wear something more comfortable.

Philosophy has been an invaluable part of my process of self-creation. It helped me learn and accept who I was, but it also gave me tools I needed to change the itchy suit for something more fitting. One of the first thinkers who inspired this process was Hannah Arendt. When I first learned about her understanding of freedom, I immediately recognized myself in her thoughts. For Arendt, freedom means the capacity for a new beginning. It is realized in the human capability for action, a feature all new human beings are endowed with. The root of freedom, for her, lies in the concept of “natality,” in the fact that each new birth represents the introduction of novelty into the world. Children are something radically new, a true embodiment of freedom and a guide to structuring our social world.

Arendt’s favorite historical example of natality is the American Revolution, a radical act of bringing liberty to the world. I realized that my longing for the New World was a form of longing for a new self. Once I settled in the place of perpetual novelty, New York City, I had another beginning to deal with: a child of my own.

I thought of Hannah Arendt a lot during those sleepless nights, as my daughter was adjusting to life outside the womb. If she is a radical novelty in this world, I remember asking myself, how can I help her preserve that novelty and not suppress her uniqueness? How can I raise this tiny new being and let her be herself and not somebody else? What could I do to raise my daughter as an original, and not merely a copy of me, my background or the cultural expectations of the time and place of her birth?

The sleepless nights were productive in more ways than one. First, I realized that Arendt was right: Children are radically new and must be treated as such. While this is sometimes hard to comprehend, especially for new parents who delight in recognizing their features imprinted on the newborn (“Look, honey, she’s got my nose!”), it is both morally and practically imperative that we do so. Regardless of the genes she inherited from her mother and me, my daughter is a unique human being, and I can’t possibly predict, yet alone determine, her future self. Will her identity confirm to my expectations? I have no right to expect that.

I have witnessed many parental disappointments in what their children grow up to be: fathers obsessing when their sons turns out gay, mothers in despair when their daughters reject their parents’ religion. Gay conversion therapies and estranged relationships between transgender children and their parents are the perfect example of parental expectations gone off the rails. I knew that I wanted to be better than that. But how?

For children to grow up as authentic human beings and not as products of their parents’ expectations, they must learn to understand that identities are built on reasons, in other words, reasonable justifications; the very concept of identity is derived from this concept of reasons.

If personal identity is a certain kind of belief about oneself, it is always the product of the relation between the person’s consciousness and some set of facts. According to this, there could be different kinds of reasons for identification, depending on the nature of different facts. Some of them are based on the way we are physically constituted. If a child feels more comfortable under the label of the gender opposite to (or in between or beyond) the one assigned to her at birth, then that is a reason for her to identify in such a way. Other reasons are based on historical, environmental and experiential facts.

If a child learns about another way of life, in school or through socialization, and decides to adopt it, then parents must respect that the child could have a valid reason to stray from their family’s culture. Preventing children from acting upon the reasons they recognize, without addressing their validity, betrays the value and the meaning of the parent-child relationship.

Second, I realized that parenthood is a perfect exercise in self-knowledge: One gets a chance for self-discovery. Becoming a father helped me to understand my philosophical outlook. Thinking about the reasons that could underpin my daughter’s future self helped me understand the reasons behind my own philosophical and personal identity. Namely, being an immigrant in the United States, I embody two citizenships and two cultures.

This embodiment is largely responsible for the kinds of philosophical issues that interest me. Although I live in the United States, I exist on the boundary between the two. I never cease to bewithout both referential systems: Bosnian and American. Duality is my existential default. So I am constantly aware of the workings of culture. Because I always see its edges, I keep asking questions about its core.

Even my idea about the child’s right to authentic identity embodies a duality of philosophical traditions that underpin it. For example, authenticity has traditionally been a rallying call of Romantics who, like Rousseau, believed that the progress of the Enlightenment erodes the uniqueness of individuals. We are all born originals but die as copies. The time between our birth and our death is shaped by civilization, which molds us in ways that are often contrary to those parts of ourselves that are given by nature. Insights of Rousseau, Montesquieu, Marshall Berman and other thinkers who wished to advance the cause of authentic existence have always had a special appeal to me.

Yet insisting that a person becomes authentic through access and evaluation of reasons reflects methods and ideas usually found in the tradition of Enlightenment thinkers. Unlike the Romantics, I hold that the use and promotion of reason helps us to truly be ourselves. Self-alienation is the product of an unreasonable mind. Like John Locke, I believe that identity is a product of consciousness and reason. We can’t be authentic unless we are reasonable.

Sleepless nights with a newborn are behind me. My daughter is a 4-year-old now, with an identity of her own and an iron-strong will to make things go her way. Yet the dread of an unexpected future could still grip me in the middle of the night and make me question everything, unsettling the prospects of quiet rest. The lullaby I need is nowhere to be found; all I can do is stare into the void, with no hope that it will stare back.

But when I see her sleeping serenely, I understand that the void is not to be feared. It is not a maelstrom of meaninglessness that will lead us into insanity. The void is a portal to our self. It is ours to fill with whatever we want — dreams, fears, ambitions. It is our only chance to become what we really are: parents to ourselves.

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